Report

Kent Cup Final day playing against the strongest side in Kent who have recently had wins against Reading and QPR was always going to be a tough game. Every single one of my lads gave 100% on the day and worked so hard to compete all over the park and we pushed Cray all of the way.

In the opening 5 mins Cray started the better and had a couple of early chances to score, James was standing big and strong in goal and had to take 2 very big hits from Cray players off the ball. The boys began to play their way into the match and you could tell each and everyone of them was growing in confidence. Before we opened the scoring we had to very good chances to score one of which the Cray number 1 pulled off a excellent save and the other we failed to hit the target.

We did take the lead after 21 minutes when Khalid was brought down in the box by the Cray keeper and the referee rightly so pointed to the penalty spot, Conner took the spot kick and gave us a 1-0 lead. Unfortunatley we did not hold onto the lead for long enough and sloppy defending with players diving into challenges that they did not need to make gave Cray the chance to level the scores at 1-1.

It was a very even match with both sets of players giving their all, a great advert for 2 Kent sides. Just before half time the Rustics had a corner and the ball fell again to Connor at the far post and he smashed the ball into the far corner on 38 minutes to give us a 2-1 lead at the break.

The second half was always going to be even harder with Steven getting injured and us now having to play people out of position not what we wanted.......The boys stuck at the task and defended very well and looked dangerous when we broke with pace, the second half for us just lacked conviction and we needed someone to step up and be that match winner. Cray scored in the first 5 mins to level the scores at 2-2 which was again another defensive blunder by us so now we have given Cray 2 goals.

Both sides started to fade as the game was being played at such a fast pace and with our bench looking rather thin we had to try and rest players as we could by using the 1 sub we had left, the 90 mins was up and all still level at 2-2.

Now we had 10 mins each way of extra time, the first 10 mins went with no drama and neither side really having a shot at goal. The second 10 mins Cray where very strong and really took the game to us we held out with some fantastic defending with the whole side working to win the ball back and then try to keep it. Then with just 30 seconds to go Cray scored they cut in from the right hand side and went past 3 players to then smash the ball into the top corner of the goal to crush our dream of glory once again.

Well done to Cray a great side, who we pushed to the limit. To my lads thank you for all your efforts and hard work you are a real credit to Rusthall Football Club.